Speakers include Robert George, Ryan T. Anderson
Notre Dame Law School hosted a two-day conference beginning Thursday, August 29 in honor of Gerard V. Bradley, professor of law. In celebration of Bradley’s career, the conference focused on key contributions from Bradley’s scholarship such as Catholic higher education, church-state relations, and morality in the law.
Bradley has been a professor at Notre Dame’s Law School since 1992, where he has taught courses on legal ethics, constitutional law, and criminal procedure. He also directed the Natural Law Institute at Notre Dame and served as the president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, alongside his work as faculty advisor for the Irish Rover.
Prior to his time at Notre Dame, Bradley graduated first in his class at Cornell Law School in 1980. He worked as an assistant district attorney in New York before beginning a long career in academia at the University of Illinois College of Law. Bradley’s publications include Science and Faith, Same-Sex Attraction: A Parent’s Guide, and a number of books and articles on religious liberty and constitutional jurisprudence.
To begin the conference, Bradley was toasted and interviewed by Robert P. George, professor of jurisprudence and politics at Princeton University and director of the James Madison Program at Princeton. During the conversation, Bradley reflected on his tenure at Notre Dame and his nearly 45 years as a scholar of law.
The second day of the conference began with a Mass celebrated in the law school’s chapel and continued with several panels and presentations by Bradley’s peers and former students. Topics of the conference included “Moral Reasoning in Constitutional Adjudication,” “Obscenity Law, Sex Ethics, and Morals Legislation,” “Church-State Relations and the Establishment Clause,” and the “Purpose of Catholic Higher Education.”
Ryan T. Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Christopher Tollefson, professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, jointly presented on obscenity and censorship in light of Bradley’s writings on the topic.
Tollefson began by outlining the history of pornography censorship in the U.S. and argued that instances of art censorship should be rare. However, he stated that pornography’s lack of artistic intention merits censorship, along with “horribly monstrous” works of art.
In his response, Anderson focused on preventing pornography from being produced, rather than censoring it after the fact.
Following a brief Q&A with Tollefson and Anderson, Richard Garnett, professor of law, spoke about church-state relations and the establishment clause. Garnett summarized Bradley’s work as built upon two important principles: First, that morality is reasonable and objectively true. Second, that laws governing morals are not only necessary, but inevitable.
Garnett claimed that these principles challenge popular notions about the relationship between religion and politics. The Supreme Court, Garnett said, has worked to keep religious “symbols, displays, and speech, including prayer” out of public life as much as possible in the name of separating Church and State. One example is pro-life legislation being called “unconstitutional establishments of religion.”
Garnett argued that Bradley combats the Court’s anti-religious stance. Bradley’s work, Garnett claimed, shows that laws governing morality are not exclusively religious, but rational, and go hand-in-hand with religious freedom, rather than working against it.
Following Garnett’s talk, he and Bradley took some questions from the audience on the establishment clause and religious liberty. In one response, Bradley spoke about the “risky” nature of religious liberty and difficulties legislating it, saying, “[A] society that resolves to live with religious liberty, to promote it, to constitutionalize it, is actually itself taking a fair number of chances. … I think we should not be too ready to predict the net effect of religious liberty being all positive.”
The conference ended with a lecture by Father Peter Ryan, S.J., Chair in Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. Fr. Ryan presented on Bradley’s writings regarding the purpose of Catholic higher education, a topic Bradley spoke about recently in his commencement speech at Ave Maria School of Law. Following Fr. Ryan, the weekend concluded with a reception and toasts at the Morris Inn.
Jacqueline Carney, assistant teaching professor of the law school, reflected on the conference in a comment to the Rover, saying, “[M]y favorite part of the two-day celebration was hearing Gerry’s friends, family, and colleagues talk about the profound blessing that he has been in each of their lives. … But I was also struck by Gerry’s humility amidst the sea of well-deserved praise.”
Carney continued, “He thanked the Lord and his wife at every turn, noting in his last words of the conference that Providence had been good to him over the years. The law school has suffered a loss in Gerry Bradley’s retirement.”
James Whitaker is a graduate student in the Theology department. Attending this conference has sparked his interest in the world of law, but he is hesitant to spend any more time in school. If any law-firms are seeking professional theologians as consultants, he is available for hire at jwhitak5@nd.edu.
Haley Garecht is a junior studying Political Science, Irish Studies, and Constitutional Studies. She is also interested in law, but worries about missing any more seasons of Philadelphia sports if she goes to law school. If any law firms are looking for sports correspondents, she can be reached at hgarecht@nd.edu.
This article was corrected after publication on Sept. 11, 2024. Professor George was misidentified as the head of the James Madison Institute and a link was provided to that organization’s website. Professor George is instead the head of the unrelated Jame Madison Program at Princeton.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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